Quote of the Day (Joey Buttafuoco’s Ex on Him and Amy Fisher)

“Why do we like train wrecks? Why do we like to watch? Why do we slow down when we go past an accident scene? It's the nature of the beast, I guess."—Mary Jo Connery, on America’s continuing fascination with ex-husband Joey Buttafuoco and her would-be killer, Amy Fisher, quoted in “Mary Jo Scoffs at Joey and Amy's Second Shot at Love,” quoted in Good Morning America, May 17, 2007

This particular “train wreck” occurred on this date 20 years ago, when Amy Fisher shot Mary Jo Buttafuoco in the face on the doorstep of her Long Island home. Thus started the prototype of the modern tabloid sex scandal.

A shooting is a deadly affair—except when the media decide it isn’t. It might have been different if, against all odds, Mary Jo had died. But she survived and, for awhile, even stayed with and defended her sleazy husband. That seemed to give the media license for a free-for-all in which the victim in all of this came in for almost as much criticism as Joey and Amy.

Before long, the tabloids and network and cable stations were airing every detail of how the Long Island Lolita hooked up with Long Island Lothario Joey Buttafuoco. The hotter Joey’s denials of impropriety, the more obvious it became that the teen (16 years old when she began sleeping with the married man) was servicing him as much as he had serviced her in his normal capacity at his auto-body shop. And the more obvious the affair, the more undignified—ridiculous, even—Joey looked in disavowing it.

Every year, television honors its best with the Emmy Awards. I bet you can guess that none of the three TV movies about the affair (including one starring Drew Barrymore) ended up with any nominations.  I think it’s a safe bet, too, that all of the personnel involved with creating or green-lighting these products would prefer that their obituaries not mention these particular credits.

On the other hand, one person’s career achieved greater heights because of the affair—or, rather, because of its comic fodder for his act. Three years before Jay Leno’s “The Dancing Itos” parodied the O.J. Simpson trial principals, David Letterman discovered comic gold in another shooting. So incessant—and, yes, deadly funny—were his barbs that he had only had to utter the word “Buttafuoco” in his opening monologue to convulse his audience. He even got a guest on his show, Al Gore, to announce that his Secret Service nickname was “Buttafuoco.”

Wait a second…Something is wrong there. That moniker should have been assigned to Gore's boss, who, only a few months before this triangle, had heatedly—and misleadingly—denied his own fling with a tabloid-ready personality, a nightclub “entertainer.” Just as Joey should have avoided getting mixed-up with a confused teenager, so Bill Clinton should have run far, far away from a trashy blonde with dark roots and a weird penchant for spelling her first name “Gennifer.” And, just as Joey should have done with Amy, the President should have sung “Go Away, Little Girl” as soon as his eyes lit on Monica Lewinsky.

Many people wondered why Mary Jo stuck with her sleazy husband—though many of these same people did not ask why Hillary Clinton didn’t walk out on hers. (Eleven years later, tiring of his antics—including, in the interim, solicitation of a prostitute—Mary Jo at last filed for divorce.)

Earlier this year, Mary Jo remarried—the most visible she has been since she gave the heave-ho to Joe. She has certainly come out with more of a measure of dignity than Fisher (latest career move: Celebrity Rehab With Dr. Drew) or Joey (additional criminal charges: auto-insurance fraud and illegal possession of ammunition). After she referred to him as a "sociopath" in a memoir a few years ago, he hired a lawyer who sued her on the grounds that she had "made Mr. Buttafuoco a pariah in the community, causing him not just public embarrassment, but the loss of business."

At  least Joey's legal eagle was being paid to look like an idiot, unlike his thick-headed client....